


Stop Helping Me!

by geusejuice



Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: beetlejuice is somehow both an obnoxious older AND younger sibling at the same time, lydia is a lesbian and also useless, they are best friends but murder is threatened regularly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-01-20 18:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geusejuice/pseuds/geusejuice
Summary: Beetlejuice is a lesbian ally, whether the lesbian likes it or not.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice/Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Lydia Deetz/female oc
Comments: 44
Kudos: 588





	1. Chapter 1

Lydia swung the broom hard, but Beetlejuice just floated a few inches higher.

“Jesus, do you ever stop texting this girl? You got home half an hour ago.”

“Give it _back_, Beetlejuice, I _mean _it!”

“Is this a picture of the flowers in the front yard? _Wow_, ‘they’re the same color as your eyes’, that’s so corny. Have you been taking romance advice from Adam again?”

“Shut up! Nobody asked you!” Lydia snarled, bright red with both exertion and embarrassment. She scrambled up onto her desk chair, but Beetlejuice remained infuriatingly out of swatting range.

“Yeah-huh, you did. You were all ‘_I don’t know how to tell her I like her, how do I get her to go on a date with me, Beetlejuice please use your vast wisdom to help me!_’” The mocking falsetto was pitched into an obnoxious whine.

“I did _not_,” Lydia said, lowering the broom as she gasped for breath. The stupid thing was _heavy_.

“I read between the lines. Hmmm…” Beetlejuice tapped his chin thoughtfully, then shot her an evil grin. A flash of terror crossed Lydia’s face.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, _don’t_.”

“Oh well now I _have_ to.”Beetlejuice cleared his throat. “_’Dear Charlotte,’_” he began, and Lydia shrieked, flinging the broom at him. He dodged by inches. “_’I think you are soooo cute.’_”

“If you don’t give me my phone right now, I’ll unsummon you, I swear to god, Beetlejuice!”

“And risk sending your phone with me to the Netherworld? I don’t think so. Where was I? Oh right._ ‘I think you have really groovy style’_—kids still say groovy, right? – _‘and also your brain is as cute as your face.’ _Chicks love it when you compliment their intelligence, FYI.”

Lydia grabbed a book off the shelf and threw it. Beetlejuice spun sideways, not missing a beat, thumbs tapping expertly away.

_“’I think about you constantly. One time I told a joke that made you laugh, and I wouldn’t shut up about it for four days, even though it wasn’t even that funny—‘“_

“I mentioned it _once_,” Lydia protested, flinging another book.

“Twice. _‘I was going to ask you out on a date but I think we should skip to the part where we get married, because I’m sooooo in loooove-‘_”

“I’m going to _kill_ you!” Lydia shouted. The door swung open.

“What is going on in here?” Charles asked. Beetlejuice whooped and shot out the open door, nearly clipping the man as he sped by overhead. Lydia shoved past her father and took off after the demon.

“Beetlejuice get back here! Don’t you _dare!_”

Beetlejuice bounced off the wall and flew into the living room, startling both Maitlands, who were bent over a cupcakes-of-the-world jigsaw puzzle.

“_’and that’s why I think we would make the perfect couple, love, Lydia Deetz_’ and _send_. Hey sexy, think fast!” 

Adam yelped and lunged for the phone Beetlejuice tossed in their direction, only just managing to catch it before it hit the floor.

“Ha ha, you knew I meant you,” the demon taunted, and cackled at Adam’s blush.

“You _always _mean me,” Adam protested.

“Damn right I do.”

“_YOU.” _Lydia appeared, red-face and breathing hard, eyes burning with murderous, vengeful fire. Beeteljuice pointed at Adam.

“He did it!”

“Wh- No I didn’t! I didn’t do anything!”

“How _could_ you? How could you send that to her? She’s never going to want to speak to me again; she’s going to think I’m _crazy_!”

Curious, Barbara leaned over her husband’s shoulder.

“_’Hey, the movie theater is doing an Alfred Hitchcock screening this weekend, do you want to go with me’. _That doesn’t sound too crazy to me.”

“No, that sounds like fun,” Adam agreed. “Charlie’s a big film buff, right?”

Beetlejuice put his hands behind his head and lounged back on thin air, radiating smugness while Lydia sputtered beneath him. 

“But- But- But all the stuff you said-!”

“Aw, c’mon, Lydia, you really think I’d do that to you?”

“_Yes.”_

“Oh, so cruel.” He put his hands over his chest. “After all I’ve done for you.”

Lydia’s phone dinged, and both Maitlands gasped.

“Oh! Oh, she said yes!” Barbara said, bouncing with excitement.

“With three exclamation points! That’s good, right?”

“She said yes?” Lydia rushed across the room and took her phone back, eyes frantically scanning the screen. “She said yes! She wants to go! With me!”

Beetlejuice landed neatly beside Lydia, and leaned in.

“You’re welcome,” he said in a sing-song voice.

Lydia punched him on the arm with every ounce of strength she had.

“Ow!”

“You _asshole_.”

“I was _helping_.”

“You were deliberately tormenting me!”

“I can do both!” 

Her phone dinged again, and Lydia’s attention was drawn back to it, a huge smile splitting her face. Beetlejuice leaned in again, a hand cupped around his ear.

“Okay, _fine_. Thank you. Don’t do it again.”

“Well alright, but when you need to think of a way to ask her to the next dance, don’t come crying to me for advice.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Charlie, what’s up? Oh, not much, you know. The use…usual. So hey, I was thinking… So, hey, I wanted to…I thought it might be fun if…Hey, you know how the school is throwing that dance? Oh my _god _Lydia, she’s on the _planning committee_, of course she knows there’s a dance!”

Lydia took a step back from the bathroom sink and took a deep breath. She gave the mirror a smile and put a bit of a laugh in her voice, because I’m being funny! Look how funny and charming I am!

“Hey Charlie, I don’t know if you’ve _noticed_, but there’s this dance thing happening in a few weeks, and I thought may-maybe, if nobody else has—if you don’t have any other plans or, I thought, you know, we, uh, we…” She put her face in her hands and groaned. She couldn’t even say it to _herself_. How was she ever going to be able to–

“Strong out of the gate but justcouldn’t nail that landing. Let’s see the score: ooohh, it’s a _zero _across the board from the judges, _what _a shame!”

Lydia whirled around. Beetlejuice, lounging casually against the door with his arms folded across his chest, grinned at her. She glanced over her shoulder at the mirror, and saw only herself.

“How long were you standing there?” she demanded.

“Literally the _entire _time,” he said, grin only growing wider as her face turned pink. “I don’t know which is worse, the fact that you’re practicing, or the fact that you needit so bad.”

“Oh shut up! Like _you’ve _never been nervous about asking someone out before.”

“Nope!” Beetlejuice said. “You spend your formative years being constantly rejected by your mother, you develop a real thick skin by the time you’re old enough to date.”

“Uh-huh,” Lydia said, raising an eyebrow. She mimicked his pose, leaning back against the counter. “Then the reason you still haven’t talked to the Maitlands is…?”

His smug expression morphed into that of a small, fuzzy animal watching the headlights get bigger.

“Wh- That- I’m not– Don’t change the subject! We’re talking about _your _pathetic romantic flailing right now.”

“So you admit that you’re flailing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“Did not.”

“Hey, you wanna play charades again? Here, guess who I am.” Lydia put on a wistful, hangdog expression. “One word, compound word, starts with B—“

Beetlejuice let out a long, loud, exasperated sigh, drowning out her mockery. 

“Alright, _fine_, I wasn’t going to offer, but since you asked _so _nicely, _yes _I will ask your not-girlfriend to the dance for you.” He around Lydia for her phone, abandoned on the countertop. “Don’t worry, I won’t do it over text. I do a _great _impression of you—“

Lydia snatched up her phone and ferociously slapped his hands away.

“Ow!”

“Don’t you _dare_,” she snarled, clutching her phone to her chest as if he might try and snatch it away. He jabbed a finger at her.

“Hey, if it wasn’t for me, you two wouldn’t have even reached the not-girlfriends stage. You’d still be at the pining-from-a-near-distance-just-friends stage.”

“Didn’t you say last time you specifically weren’t going to help me ask her out to the next dan—“

“_Look,_” he interrupted, flinging an arm around her shoulder and gesturing to an imaginary horizon. “You gotta think _big_. I’m talking flowers, I’m talking ensemble dance numbers, I’m talking spelling her full name out in lighter fluid on the football field and setting it on fire! You can’t just walk up to her and ask like you’re inviting her over to hang out!”

“Those are terrible ideas.”

“I heard dance number and lighter fluid,” came Barbara’s worried voice from the other side of the bathroom door.

Lydia shrugged Beetlejuice’s arm off her shoulder and opened the door.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m not listening.”

Beetlejuice followed her out, looking smug again.

“Lydia was practicing for her big presentation on how _not_ to ask a girl to go to the dance with you.”

Barbara’s face lit up with delight.

“Are you and Charlie going to the dance together?”

The demon snorted.

“Not at this rate she isn’t. _So hey, I was thinking… So, hey, I wanted to…I thought it might be fun if…” _His impression of Lydia was worryingly good. Barbara gave him a disapproving look. “Aw, don’t be such a square, Babs.”

“I just feel so _stupid_,” Lydia burst out suddenly. She crossed the room and flopped over onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I know what I want to say, but when I try to actually _say _the words it’s just…” She waved her hands in front of her face. “Blah.”

Barbara sat on the bed next to her.

“If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that–” she mimicked Lydia’s hand waving, “’_blah_’ worked for me.”

Lydia shifted on the bed so she could see Barbara more clearly without sitting up.

“Really? With…” She pointed up towards the attic.

“Yup. It was tenth grade. The school was throwing a Sadie Hawkins dance, the kind where the girls ask the guys? I was so nervous! I followed Adam around school all day, trying to find the right moment. Finally I got up the nerve to go talk to him, but the second he said hello to me I completely froze!”

“So what did you do?” Lydia asked, still stretched out on the bed, but starting to look hopeful.

“There was a poster on the wall advertising the dance, so I went like this.” She pointed over her shoulder and made an expression, a shrug and a sheepish grimace that somehow managed to perfectly communicate _I’m too nervous to actually say the words out loud but I’d really like to go to the dance with you_.

“And that _worked?_’

“He said yes, didn’t he?” 

“Hey Lydia, you should answer your phone before Charlie has a heart attack. Also, side note, I take back anything I ever said about her being cool.”

Lydia sat upright.

“What?”

Beetlejuice waggled her phone, which he had somehow managed to snag out of her hand on her way out of the bathroom. 

“First she sent you a picture of the spring dance poster with ‘you and me question mark’ written on it in silver sharpie. Then, the last five minutes she’s sent you about sixty follow up texts. ‘_I probably should have just asked you in person, this was pretty lame. Sorry. I got nervous. Not that you make me nervous. I think you’re really cool. That’s why I asked you out. Duh. Sorry, that was stupid. Just pretend I didn’t say that. But I do want to go with you. But it’s ok if you don’t want to.’_ Ooh, she’s calling you.”

“Beetlejuice, don’t—!“

“Too late!” He held the phone to his ear. “County Morgue, you stab ‘em we slab ‘em—”

Lydia slammed into him with surprising speed and force for a girl her size, nearly knocking him to the ground. When he stumbled back, she grabbed her phone and shoved his face away.

“Hey Charlie! No, nobody, just my stupid cousin, or, whatever, yeah. Yeah I did, I saw it just now! I’d um.” She bounced a little on her toes, a shy smile spreading across her face. “I’d love to go with you.”

Barbara waved for Beetlejuice to follow her.

“But I can’t make fun of her if I’m not listening in!” he protested in a whisper. Barbara rolled her eyes good naturedly.

“Yes, I know,” she whispered back. “That’s the point.”

He opened his mouth to argue and stuttered to a halt when Barbara took his hand and led him towards the door. Lydia was not so starry eyed that she couldn’t get in one last parting shot – another perfect imitation of Beeteljuice’s pining-from-a-distance face. He scowled at her.

“One of these days you’re going to have to ask her out and there’s not going to be a deus ex machina to save you!” he whispered furiously.

“Sure,” Lydia said, grinning. “I’ll pick you up at six?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey Adam, can I ask you something?”

Adam put his book to the side and smiled up at Lydia, standing in the doorway to the attic. They had renovated it a little, to give the Maitlands a space that was their own – something more than a hideaway filled with old memories.

Not that that meant Lydia wasn’t in and out on a daily basis.

“Sure, anything.”

Lydia thumped down on the couch beside him and slumped back against the pillows.

“How do you know when you’re official with the person you’re dating?”

A brief pause.

“Is that…slang for something?” Adam asked, uncertainly, every inch of his expression screaming _please don’t let this be a birds and the bees question I am not prepared for that conversation I don’t even have notecards._

“I mean, officially together. When you stop being two people who go on dates and start being an actual couple.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, sagging in relief. “Oh, _official, _okay.”

“What did you think I meant?” Lydia asked, because she knew he didn’t want her to.

“Not that I don’t want to help,” Adam said, frantically propelling the conversation forward and away, “but why ask me?”

“Well, Mom just started introducing herself as Dad’s girlfriend one day and he never stopped her, and uh, I don’t think Dad and Delia were ever really…_dating_, exactly.”

“Fair enough,” Adam said.

“And weren’t girls not allowed to ask guys out back when you were my age?”

“It was the _90s_, Lydia, not the middle ages. If Barbara wanted to ask me, she was perfectly—“ 

“Adam!” Lydia whined.

“Alright, alright. Barbara and I had been going out for, oh…three or four months I think, before I asked her to be my girlfriend.”

“Going out how? Like hanging out or…?” Lydia leaned forward, with such rapt attention that Adam started to feel a little performance anxiety.

“Just…dating things. We went to the movies, we went on double dates with some friends.” He grinned sheepishly. “Kissed behind the bike shed one time—“

“Adam, you _dog! _I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Hello, Beetlejuice,” Adam said, in the tired voice of a man who has long since given up trying to explain the concept of social boundaries. 

“I felt Lydia’s ‘hopeless lesbian’ vibes all the way downstairs. What are we doing this time?”

“I want to ask Charlie to be my girlfriend,” Lydia said, and Beetlejuice broke into a huge smile of genuine delight.

“Nice! Up top!” He raised a hand for a high five, which Lydia dutifully supplied, though her worried expression lingered.

“But I don’t even know how to start, I mean, what if she thinks we’re already girlfriends, and I sound like an idiot? Or what if she thinks I’m moving too fast? Or doesn’t _want _to be my girlfriend?”

Beetlejuice scoffed.

“She wouldn’t be going on dates with you if she didn’t like you back, dingus.”

Lydia perked up a little.

“That’s true,” she said, starting to look hopeful.

“Plus, you two _are_ living in small town Connecticut, so her dating pool is pretty limited. It’s not like she’s got better options—hey!”

Lydia hit him with the pillow again.

“You ruined it. We were having a moment, and you ruined it.”

He opened his mouth, then visibly derailed his train of thought.

“Hold up! You want to know how to ask Charlie to be your girlfriend, and you went to _Adam?_”

She raised an eyebrow. “Who was I supposed to ask, you?”

“_Rude.” _

Lydia turned back to Adam, who hurriedly turned his expression of fond amusement into one that was serious, but helpful.

“So?”

“So, I was walking her home after school, and I said ‘Barbara, I really like you, and I really like spending time with you, do you want to be my girlfriend.’ And she said yes.”

There was another pause, Adam’s audience giving him matching deer-in-the-headlights looks. Beetlejuice spoke first, hesitantly, as if not sure he was asking a stupid question.

“So you just…told her how you felt? With your words? No euphemisms or anything, just…talked about your feelings out loud with the person in question?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Another pause.

“I think I speak for both of us when I say that sounds like a nightmare and we’re going to need a second option.”

“Yeah I’m with Beetlejuice on this one; I don’t want to do that.”

“What if she asked a series of increasingly leading questions to work out how Charlie feels about Lydia, you know, test the waters?”

“Ooh!” Lydia pointed at Beetlejuice. “Maybe, find a way to make her think it’s her idea.”

“Yes!” Beetlejuice said, pointing back. “Yes, _exactly_.”

“_No.” _Adam’s voice was very stern. “You do not want to start your relationship by manipulating someone into doing what you want so you don’t have to. That will _not _end well for either of you.”

Both Lydia and Beetlejuice groaned.

“But I don’t _want _to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known,” the teenager whined.

“Sorry,” Adam said, not even pretending to understand the reference. “That’s my final answer.”

“Well that’s dumb,” Beetlejuice huffed, crossing his arms and sitting on the floor. Lydia picked at a fraying piece of lace on her skirt.

“What if,” she said, and stopped, swallowing hard. In a tiny voice, she said “what if she says no?”

Adam put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“It would hurt, I’m not going to lie. I’ve been there. It sucks. But love requires taking risks. You just have to decide if she’s worth that risk.”

Lydia was silent, then slowly, her expression changed to one of determination.

“Yeah,” she said, standing. “She is. I’m gonna go ask her. Right now.”

Adam smiled and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Good luck, kiddo.”

“And if she does say no, I can always…” Beetlejuice make a slashing motion across his throat. Lydia rolled her eyes and swatted him across the top of the head as she passed. “I’m being _helpful!_” the demon complained.

Lydia stopped with her hand on the doorknob and turned back towards Adam.

“Actually, speaking of deus ex machina getting someone a date,” she said, with a grin. Beetlejuice shot to his feet so fast he floated a few inches off the ground.

“Don’t you _dare_—“

“Beetlejuice has a _huge_ crush on you and Barbara, you’re welcome BJ, byyyyeeee.”

“_YOU—“ _

Lydia slammed the door on her friend’s furious yell, and laughed all the way down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It is done._


End file.
